FFT

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." - Dom Helder Camara

FFT

I live in North America. I'm fortunate. Some would even say I'm blessed. But when I look around our great country, I see disturbing contrasts. Some are rich, others poor. Some are powerful, others neglected. There are those who are healthy, those who are sick. My travels take me to countries where there appear to be no blessings. I see dirt floors, glassless windows, rag mattresses and short life expectancies, things that I would consider trials, perhaps even tribulations. Yet when I listen to the Christians living there speak about their God, I know they have seen and experienced God in a reality I can only read about. Sometimes I wonder whether their experiences allow them to know God in ways I never will.
Some say the blessings I have are from God, but it makes me wonder why God would give me financial security when that doesn't lead me to a stronger faith. Why does He protect me from pain when my pleasure only keeps me distracted from the important things in life? Ravi Zacharias in his book "Jesus among other gods" states that:
"Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain but from being weary of pleasure. It is not pain that has driven the west into emptiness; it has been the drowning of meaning in the oceans of our pleasure."
I remember the patient dying of cancer that I had told would not live out the weekend. He didn't believe me and weakly joked about my attempt to predict the future; "Are you God?" he asked gently. When I returned after my weekend off he smiled, took my hand, motioned me closer to his face and whispered that I must not be a very good doctor as he was still alive! We both knew what he meant, and we both knew that God was waiting for him; he was ready to die but he needed to wait a little longer and even in his suffering, that was okay.
We can also recall those patients who make us feel uncomfortable in their lively exuberance as they speak about the blessings of God. They are too often speaking from a life of pleasure. Safety, security, affluence and overindulgence often define our understanding of God's blessing. Is it possible that when one travels the easy road in life, one becomes spiritually soft? Is suffering a form of spiritual exercise? Are Christians in the West suffering from spiritual obesity, fed to excess on the best things in life at the table of our local "pigs-are-us" buffet?
Meaning in life becomes clearer when we go through tough times. Suffering brings out many emotions in us. Some cry out for help, others rail against the foes. But it still hurts. Is there a lesson for us in suffering? Or is this just required of the few? The Bible gives us some indication when Paul writes in Roman 5:3,4 "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
I can only conclude that North American "blessings" are not necessarily God's "blessings". There is something out there of more value. John Steinbeck, in his book "The Pearl" had it right when he told his story about the error of sacrificing all for something that was valuable but not priceless. We need to look for and find the "pearl of great price" that Christ refers to in His parable.
This issue leaves me with a bit of sanguine melancholy. Christ has not given me my affluence as a blessing to horde, but as a tool to serve. And I need to go through suffering to mature. Isn't there another way?
-Dr. Roger Gingerich

Haiti Part II Episode II

I have many, many, many blindspots and biases, but I think I try very hard to keep an open, non-judgmental mind in viewing and weighing the values of the 'other'. However, the breathless confidence that some hold about how they are the sole keepers of truth and they are the only, privileged ones who have been given the mandate to bring it to those poor, black people gives me the creeps. I've written before of those who wore shirts that said, "God is now coming to Haiti" - presumptuous. Thinking that God has never been there previously. Thinking that they are the repositories of God. Thinking that the Church does not exist here, or does absolutely nothing.
It continues: the denigration of local pastors who spend long hours loving and praying for their countrymen. The assurance that parroting back the "sinner's prayer" allows them to tick off another "saved soul". The sheer arrogance in asserting that Haitians have never known love before, which is why we are so privileged to bring it to them (WHAT??). The worldview that assures itself that Haiti is a land of Satan that needs to suffer conquest and victory over it. All of it, heinous.
I think another friend, in another context, has put it better than I: http://outthereq.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-love-that-they.html

Haiti Part II Episode I

Cholera has a 50% mortality rate, if untreated. It is a horrible death of profuse vomiting and diarrhea, an undignified, dirty, leper-like death. Families have abandoned those who start showing signs of it, fearful of ending up with the same fate, leaving patients to die alone in the filth of their own feces. Other families have shown great courage and sacrifice in getting their loved ones to the hospital.
It is ridiculously curable; the simplicity of IV fluids is enough to cure the disease. That is all; the lack of clean water and the giving of clean water are both the cause, and the cure.
Part of this contributes to my rage here, watching those who lie, completely undignified, half-naked on our hospital cots with holes ripped open in the middle of the bed, so that they can simply defecate straight into deep buckets under their cots as they are too weak and sick to do their business in private. Rage that something as simple as clean water prevents this disease. Rage that 1 in 6 people on this planet lack access to clean water on a daily basis, and that one-third of our population lack access to basic sanitation.
I serve as the pediatrician here, and have been in charge of the Pediatric Ward (Lopital Kolera pou Timoun in Creole) since my arrival. My charges are the small babies to the teenagers. Everyday, I have witnessed the miracle of Lazarus, again and again, of those who were dead, but have been brought back to life. All for the sake of a few litres of clean water.
My littlest have been but several months old, tiny little critters, to teenagers that have made me laugh when they have gotten well enough that they can complain, over and over again of, "I'm booooorrrrred." (Thank God you're well enough to complain like a regular teenager!). Some have broken my heart in their stories of hunger and want, some have made me laugh with their smiles and their shenanigans (which prove to me how much better they've gotten), some have dozed off in my lap with their velvety chocolate fingers wrapped around my own relatively fat pale ones. This is the face of Jesus that I and my amazing Peds team have resuscitated and maintained and cured, with my nurses colouring and blowing balloons and bubbles for the children. I thank God for my team, for they were amazing women with huge skills and huge hearts, and certainly, though being the pediatrician for the week, I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.